On my final prospecting day of 2020, I went up to a spot where I had found gold years before and had my best day of  the year—four nuggets for nearly one-quarter-ounce of gold.

“Just feel the heft of it!” Those were the words that lit the fire that created a prospector. Before I tell you what took place, I have a desire to tell you when and where it took place.

Palladium may well be an underexplored element and therefore an opportunity for prospectors and geologists. This is because they are often less than obvious and other than the native metals, a chemical analysis of samples is required to identify PGM-enriched rocks.

The problem is that extracting gold from hard rock is often a lot more difficult than processing placer gravels. Still, there is some very high-grade ore out there in many old mining areas.

Gold probably is one of the easiest things in the world to cheat an absentee owner out of. He would generally have no way of really knowing if a guy had found 3 nuggets or 30 nuggets on his claim.

Then it occurred to me that the drywasher was designed by an engineer. Gotta love engineers! Those slide-rule geeks always tinker with gravity, angles, curves and flow.